Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu becomes the second recipient of the National Gallery’s Contemporary Fellowship, supported by Art Fund and in collaboration with Whitworth.
A major new moment for contemporary art is taking shape: Wangechi Mutu has been named the second recipient of the National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship, an initiative designed to place artists’ ambitious, idea-driven work at the center of museum life.
Mutu. a Kenyan-American artist whose practice spans painting. sculpture. film. and performance. splits her working life between studios in Nairobi and Brooklyn. New York.. With New York as her base for decades. the transatlantic rhythm of her career is reflected in the way her work travels between materials. references. and genres. while staying anchored in a distinctive visual language.
The fellowship’s focus aligns closely with Mutu’s long-running engagement with narratives of womanhood—especially how contemporary culture continues to circulate misogynistic and violent portrayals of Black women.. In her practice. she confronts these images directly. drawing attention to the harm that comes when representation is reduced to spectacle. stereotype. or threat.
Her visual strategy is both symbolic and unsettling.. Mutu incorporates imagery of mothers, virgins, and goddesses drawn from art history, then reworks them through Afro-futurist influences.. The result is not simply a revision of familiar icons. but a reimagining of what those figures can mean when placed under pressure by gendered violence and racialized power.
A key part of her method is what the program describes as visual myth-making—an approach that blends fiction with historical reference.. Rather than accepting mainstream symbolic figures as fixed. Mutu imagines new female forms. building symbolic space for figures that have often been excluded from dominant cultural storytelling.. The fellowship. in that sense. is not only a recognition of her output. but an endorsement of the kind of cultural work her images perform.
Mutu’s international standing is already well established. Her work has previously been recognized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2017 and the National Museum of African Art in 2019—markers of how her practice has continued to resonate across major collections and public audiences.
The Contemporary Fellowship programme is backed by Art Fund. and it also comes with a significant shift in how the selection process is structured.. The initiative opened the selection process to public collecting institutions beyond London for the partnership role. widening the institutional perspective behind the fellowship and reflecting a broader push for national and international reach.
Whitworth, The University of Manchester will deliver the fellowship in collaboration with the National Gallery.. It was chosen by the National Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Advisory Panel. a decision tied to confidence in Whitworth’s international outlook as well as the strength of its exhibitions and collections programme.. For museums. that combination matters: the fellowship is positioned not just as a single-artist platform. but as part of a sustained curatorial relationship between institutions.
The fellowship will culminate in an exhibition presented first at the National Gallery from 9 October 2027 to 6 February 2028.. After that initial run. the exhibition will travel to Whitworth in spring 2028. allowing the work to encounter different audiences and institutional contexts while keeping its core themes intact.
What makes this appointment culturally significant is the way Mutu’s concerns—misogyny. racialized violence. and the struggle over visual myths—intersect with the fellowship’s own emphasis on international collaboration.. By pairing her work with a cross-institutional delivery model. the program effectively treats contemporary art as public inquiry: a field where the stories societies tell about women. especially Black women. can be challenged. revised. and made impossible to ignore.
Wangechi Mutu National Gallery Fellowship contemporary art Afro-futurism visual myth-making Black women representation Whitworth